Tag Archives: Aidan Burley

As the Crown Prosecution Services prepares to announce whether it intends to prosecute over 30 Tory “individuals” (sic) for failing to correctly declare elections expenses during the 2015 General Election, it’s worth remembering the other scandal into which the Tory Election Expenses Scandal is interwoven. That scandal is the Tory Bullying Scandal.

It is worrying that for more than a year the entire story has gone quiet. Indeed, a current government minister, a former minister and the party chairman are entangled in its web. A party worker actually committed suicide after a campaign of bullying and intimidation, and a sitting MP was blackmailed for having an affair.

Here is what we know about the Tory Bullying Scandal:

In 2014, Mark Clarke was appointed director Conservative RoadTrip2015 by Grant Shapps, the then party chairman. This organization, bussed activists around the country to key marginals. RoadTrip2015 is at the heart of the Tory Election Expenses Scandal.

Clarke threatened to blackmail Robert Halfon, MP over an alleged sexual infidelity.

A file on the bullying was passed to party chairman, Lord Feldman, who failed to take action.

Elliott Johnson, a young party activist committed suicide after being bullied by Clarke and Andre Walker, whom he regards as a friend. Walker himself was covertly recorded on a train plotting to smear Alison Knight, the deputy leader of Windsor Council with an associate. Walker also claimed to be Johnson’s lover.

David Cameron invited Clarke to Chequers to celebrate the activists’ role in the campaign’s success

Sayeeda Warsi, a former party chair, wrote to Shapps demanding action be taken against bullying. She claimed that she received “no satisfactory response”.

There was considerable overlap between Thatcherite group, Conservative Way Forward (CWF), Conservative Future (youth wing), RoadTrip2015 and Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF). It was revealed that Clarke had sexually assaulted several female members of YBF. This forced Donal Blaney, the YBF’s leader to cancel their annual conference. Blaney was also forced to resign from CWF.

Shapps was forced to resign as International Development Minister.

Clarke was suspended and later expelled from the party.

The internal Tory Party inquiry found there were 13 alleged victims. The same inquiry, conducted by Clifford Chance, concluded that senior party figures were “unaware” bullying was taking place. Elliott Johnson’s parents condemned the inquiry as a “whitewash”.

Clarke appeared on The Cat’s radar back in 2012, when he was listed as the YBF’s Outreach Officer. I’d already written a piece on the YBF and its role as the self-styled ‘madrassah’, which trained young Tory trolls activists. Clarke and the YBF had even plotted to “take over” the City of London Corporation (Council). Aidan ‘Nazi Boy’ Burley, the former MP or Cannock Chase, was a member of the YBF. He was also an associate of Clarke and the pair worked together in the Trade Union Reform Campaign or TURC. Indeed, given the names of those involved in the YBF (Blaney, Burley et al), it is entirely possible that this scandal also involves certain members – past and present – of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Party. Clarke was also stepping out with Justine Greening, the current Education Secretary.

While the Tory Bullying Scandal was bubbling along, in December 2015 it emerged that Lucy Allen, the MP for Telford, had left one of her workers a series of bullying rants on her voicemail. Not satisfied with what she’d already done, Allan added the words “unless you die” to a message from a constituent that criticized her support for bombing Syria. Allan was neither investigated nor disciplined for her actions.

This is a scandal that goes right to the heart of Downing Street. But why has this story gone so cold? Could it have something to do with the Conservative Party’s internal inquiry, dubbed by some as a “whitewash”? The corporate media dropped the story soon after the inquiry. Yet questions about bullying in the Tory Party and the connection between RoadTrip2015 and the Tory Election Expenses Scandal persist. Will we ever get to the truth?

UPDATE 25/4/17 @ 1808

The Guardian have taken up the story and added more detail.

The Conservatives have failed to hand over a report on allegations of bullying within the party to police despite repeated requests from detectives, it has emerged.

British Transport police (BTP) have asked the Tory party to disclose the full report on the bullying inquiry, which was launched after allegations were made against the former election aide and failed parliamentary candidate Mark Clarke.

The Conservatives failed to hand over a report? Now where have I heard that before? Ah yes, last year, the Tories were rather sluggish to hand over a file to the Electoral Commission. Remember?

According to The Huffington Post, Aidan Burley, the genius behind the Nazi-themed stag party for which his pal, Mark Fournier, later copped a 1,500 Euro fine from a French court, is to step down at the next general election. Burley escaped a fine and got nothing more a light tap on the bum after a Tory party internal inquiry found him guilty of ‘hi-jinx’. Now he will be free to spend more time practising his goose-step.

Jessica Elgot writes:

Burley said in a statement: “After a difficult time I have decided to announce I will stand down at the next general election.

“I will continue to work for the people of Cannock Chase until that election, and look forward to supporting my successor, as soon as he or she is selected, to ensure that Labour have no chance of re-taking this seat.

“It was a wonderful surprise to win the seat of Cannock Chase in May 2010 with the biggest swing in the country and it has been a huge privilege to represent the people of Cannock Chase in Parliament over the past four years.

“I am grateful to all those who voted for me and supported our campaign which led to our famous victory.”

I meant to write something about the long-delayed Tory report into Aidan Burley’s behaviour last week, but I was overwhelmed with other commitments. Needless to say The Cat is not surprised that an internal inquiry (the Tories despise such things as evidence and believed every word Nazi Boy told them) has exonerated him with little more than a slap on the wrist. The internal Conservative party report into Burley’s role in the SS uniform scandal nearly two years ago concluded that he is “not anti-Semitic” and behaved in a “stupid and offensive way”. So it was all just youthful high jinks then? Not as far as The Cat is concerned. The Tories even refused to accept first hand evidence from The Mail on Sunday… The Mail on Sunday. A Tory paper!

Here are the facts as I see them:

1. Burley paid for the SS uniform, knowing that the stag party was to be held in France, a country that has outlawed Holocaust denial, the wearing of Nazi uniforms and yes, toasts to the Third Reich.

2. Burley’s letter of apology to The Jewish Chronicle was a lie from start to finish.

In an article for the Jewish Chronicle on 15 December 2011, four days after the revelations about the stag do were published in the Mail on Sunday, Burley issued a strong apology but disassociated himself from the “clearly inappropriate behaviour” of other guests.

He was given the exact words to use in his letter by someone in Tory Central Office. You can be certain of that.

So what is so special about Burley that Cameron and the leadership of the party feel such a desperate need to protect him? Is he being groomed for the Home Office or Works and Pensions portfolio? We already know that when the Tories took office in 2010, Burley hit the ground running with his guaranteed-to-please-David Cameron venture, the Trade Union Reform Campaign. Like Burley, the Nazis didn’t care much for trade unions either and banned them outright. In their place, Hitler created the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF), headed by Robert Ley, to organize workers along nationalist and militaristic lines. DAF subgroups like Strength Through Joy and Beauty Through Work were also added to provide diversions. The Reichsarbeitsdienst was created with the purpose of providing cheap (often forced) labour that exploited unemployed men, who were used for work on major infrastructure projects like the autobahn network. Is this what the Tories have in mind for trade unionists and the unemployed if they win the next General Election? There is already talk about creating work camps for the HS2 project.

Two years ago, Aidan Burley, the MP for Cannock Chase was caught on camera at a stag party in France at which his friend, attired in an SS uniform toasted Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. For two years the Conservative Party has evaded questions over Burley’s conduct and suppressed its own report into his behaviour.

Nearly two years ago, Aidan Burley, the Tory MP for Cannock Chase was recorded on video at a stag night in which his mates are caught on camera wearing Nazi uniforms. In one scene, his chum toasts the Third Reich. We know the uniforms were hired by Burley (has anyone checked his expenses record to see if he used public money to hire these costumes?).

We were told that the French prosecutor’s report would be released for public viewing. Nearly two years later and there’s no sign of it.

The results of a Conservative Party disciplinary inquiry into an MP who attended a Nazi-themed stag party will not be published until French prosecutors have completed their own criminal investigation into the incident, the party said.

However the probe by senior officials is not believed to have concluded that Aidan Burley, who represents Cannock Chase, should have the Tory whip withdrawn.

A party spokesman said the in-house inquiry into Mr Burley’s role, ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron, had been completed but that its report, originally scheduled for publication this month, had been postponed.

“It would be inappropriate to release the report’s findings while French police are continuing their own investigations,” he said.

Does it really take this long for the French police to investigate the matter? This doesn’t sound right. Does David Cameron have something to hide? I would say he does.

He chairs the Trade Union Reform Campaign (TURC), which has a list of things they want to stop unions from being able to do. TURC invited Halfon, a serious and thoughtful character, to speak at one of their meetings, and were a little taken aback when he told them that their campaign was “ethically and politically wrong”. They should recognise unions as valuable community institutions and encourage Conservatives to get involved, he suggested.

My bold. Yes, a Tory… Rob Halfon said that. It would seem that even some of his fellow Tories find his ideas a little nutty.

Aidan Burley’s reported remarks about the Kurdish genocide illustrate the need to amplify understanding of what happened to the Iraqi Kurds for so many years. Britain did so much to protect the Kurds in 1991 and in 2003 and is perfectly placed to help lead the way in recognising the brutal realities of genocide. This does so much to help the Kurds to continue to overcome the past and build a prosperous peaceful and pluralist Iraq with the help of deeper and broader political commercial and cultural links with the UK. Mr Burley would be wise to apologise for making light of a genocidal campaign waged by a fascist regime. He could also show contrition by committing himself to supporting the cross party campaign spearheaded by his colleagues Nadhim Zahawi and Robert Halfon.

Zahawi is an Iraqi Kurd. A fact that went seeminglyunnoticed by Burley.

His Trade Union Reform Campaign has been quiet for a couple of months too. The last blog entry was 14 July, 2013. Their last event was on 24 January, 2012.

He has been chosen despite the failure of the Conservative Party to release a promised report into his participation in the event, which took place at the Val Thorens ski-resort in late 2011.

A guest at the stag event was photographed wearing SS uniform, while there were also claims that attendees toasted SS leaders.

Mr Burley was reselected at a Cannock Chase Conservative Association meeting this week, after which association chairman Phil Jones said that the “overwhelming feeling” was that “since 2010 he has set a new standard as a constituency MP”.

He has a majority of 3,195, but is placed at number 50 on the Labour Party’s target list for 2015.

Sadly, it looks like it’s just The Cat and The Jewish Chronicle who are interested in the whereabouts of the French investigator’s report into Burley. The rest of Britain’s ‘free’ press seems to be eerily silent on this matter.

A majority of 3,195 isn’t massive and if Labour can make capital out of Nazi Boy’s fetish for Third Reich symbols, then they can’t fail.

Burley managed to upset many people last year when he tweeted to his followers that the Olympics opening ceremony was “lefty crap”. That’s ok, Herr Oberst, we don’t much care for Nazi crap around here either.

Yesterday, as I watched the Benefit Uprating Bill debate on television, I noticed the number of Tories who lined up to repeat the same canards about the unemployed and those on benefits. I was struck at how similar their arguments were to those made by the Nazis when they used Jews as scapegoats for the Great Depression and much else besides. So it came as no surprise to me when Aidan “Nazi Boy” Burley, trotted out a series of unsubstantiated anecdotes about “benefit cheats”, which he presented as “facts”. Arrogant and smug, he seemed to revel in the boos of the opposition benches.

But then, I thought, “What happened to the investigation launched by French prosecutors over a year ago into his toast to the Nazi Party at his pal’s stag party”? It went a little quiet, didn’t it?

The Conservative Party is being urged to release a much-delayed report into the conduct of MP Aidan Burley on an allegedly Nazi-themed stag party, a year after the trip occurred.

The Cannock Chase MP was sacked as a Parliamentary Private Secretary last December after it emerged that a guest wore SS uniform at the ski-resort party in Val Thorens. There were also claims that other guests toasted SS leaders.

At the time, after Mr Burley expressed regret, the Prime Minister asked for a fuller investigation of the matter in Britain, a summary of which the Conservative Party promised would be published by the end of February 2012.

But a spokesman for the party said this week that any findings would not be made public until the French prosecutors completed their investigation.

“There will come a point once that is done when we will release it in some form,” he said. “Until we hear the investigation is wrapped up the party won’t be saying anything further.”

The Cat would like to know why the report has been delayed. Has the Conservative Party been leaning on the French magistrates or has the report been deliberately suppressed to avoid embarrassment? Whatever the case, I think we need to know.

The Cannock Chase seat currently held by Conservative MP Aidan Burley, who faced national embarrassment in 2010 after reports surfaced of him at an allegedly Nazi-themed stag party, is at number 50. His opponent, Janos Toth, is the son of a non-Jewish Holocaust refugee who fled Poland to escape the Nazis.

You will recall that Burley was accused of texting and dozing off while he was attending a Holocaust Memorial lecture. The voters of Cannock Chase deserve better than this lying, Nazi-fetishizing toerag. Come 2015, they will have the chance to vote him out of office and replace him with someone who is more sympathetic to Holocaust victims. Let’s also hope that, in the meantime, the French prosecutors slap him with a custodial sentence. Now that would be real justice.